Hisham Didn't Turn 29 - Truthful Reflections on the Death of a Friend

Hisham should have turned 29; he didn't. He didn't turn 28 either. He turned 27 on November 20th 2006 but died four months before his 28th birthday.
I have seen him twice already - not him personally of course but someone who looked like him. The first time I saw the guy who resembles him my heart raced so quickly as I looked - stared - at the guy as he walked past me. I must have looked like I have seen a ghost. A thousand thoughts rushed through my head as I experienced shock, reasonable thinking about the fact that it is impossible that this guy is him - and immediate sorrow of re-living the loss of a friend. Remembering causes sorrow that is as painful as living a loss for the first time. Or maybe it is like that just for me. I never really acknowledged the fact that Hisham doesn't exist anymore. Even writing it down now is so hurtful - yet it feels unreal at the same time. Up until now I have managed to avoid writing it down - or saying it out loud. I just pretended that his death never happened. I would tell myself that he is well and living in some other city - lie to myself to make myself feel better just like you would lie to a child who can't handle some brutal truth. It is not like his death was so sudden that it left me shocked and in total denial. I visited him several times in his hideous ICU room in the hospital. I called his parents - or made someone else call them - every single day to check on how he was doing. On the day of his funeral I went to his parent's house to offer condolences. I wore black. I saw his coffin. And I cried all day long. Yet, all these never managed to really convince me that he is really gone because every time I try to logically think about this fact it seems so horrific, painful, distant, and unreal that I just shrug my shoulders and tell myself that he has to be alive and well and preferably in another city which is why we can't see him any more.
Remembering him is very painful. Walking into his office and seeing someone else sitting in his chair on his desk was something I was never able to handle. I know that companies don't turn office spaces into shrines - I didn't expect that but deep inside I wanted his office to stay as it was - and I know that the only logical thing big corporations can do is to fill up empty spaces. I know that because I was the one who was expected to and assigned to do his work. Working in his place and trying to fill his shoes was one of the hardest things I had to do. It only took me a couple of days to discover that he was protecting me from the cruelty of all the people around me. I also discovered that he dealt with insanity without ever complaining and that he always simplified things for me and asked me to focus on getting things done instead of drawing my attention to all the problems that were happening. I discovered that he was one of very few people that were honest, pure, and genuinely truthful. I had never been able to understand the extreme form of honesty he used to express. It frequently shocked me, occasionally bothered me, and in some rare cases hurt me. Within less than a week from when he was hospitalized I developed a deep appreciation and respect to his over-honesty and a disdain to everyone else's fake smiles and attitudes. I never had the brevity to stand up to people the way he did. He called things as they were. I always chose my battles and most of the times I would just ignore the backstabbing, lies, and endless gossip. I knew about them but chose to ignore them indefinitely and focus on getting things done. He would never have chosen my approach. He was very interested in fairness, justice, rights, and Truth. Seeking these made Hisham what he was and defined his death as a loss to all of us whether we realize it or not.

Last Weekend November 2008

This weekend was kinda 'interesting'. It started off with the screen of my laptop cracking on Friday.
On Saturday I went to London for the second time - don't envy me already; read this all the way through. During the whole week before that I was negotiating with my brother to come over to Southampton and bring me the rest of my winter clothes which he was nice enough to bring from Lebanon. When I went to London the first time, I took almost 70% of the clothes he got with him and left the really thick items for later. That was almost two months ago. I didn't have any time to go again and neither did my brother - and when one of us had time the other couldn't make it! Eventually we agreed that since he was already gonna be in London on Saturday because of some prior engagement then I can meet him there to get my stuff. So, I left home at 9:10 and walked to the bus interchange to take a bus to the train station. I arrived at the interchange at 9:25 - missing the bus by 5 minutes - damn. So, I waited 15 minutes for the next bus and got on it. The bus arrived at the station at 9:55 and I immediately queued to buy a ticket. Unfortunately, the queue was really slow and by the time it was my turn to buy a ticket it was 10:05 and I had missed the 10:00 train - damn again. So, I bought a ticket for the 10:30 train. I then got some coffee - ESSENTIAL (and as I am writing this I am thinking of getting some coffee as well hehehe) - and waited for the 10:30 train. The train trip took around 1hr25mins and I was in London Waterloo station at 11:55. I got off the train, met Tarek, took my bag from him, chatted with him for a few minutes and then we decided to check the schedules of the trains going back back to Southampton. There was one leaving at 12:10 so we decided I should take that train - and I did!!! The trip back to Southampton also took around 1hr30mins. I then took another bus to the interchange and walked from the interchange to the dorms. I was back in my dorm room by 2:00 PM - dizzy, nauseous, and tired!
I then had something to eat and met my friend for a course group study in the computer science lab. Luckily, the computer science lab is open in the weekends! We worked till the evening and then left.
Sunday, I woke up and went to the computer science lab to finish up working with my friend. We finished by lunch time and I was back in my room at 4:oo P.M. George then helped shop for a monitor online. We couldn't find any cheap ones :( but after a couple of hours we had narrowed our search to two used ones which we found on ebay and bid on them. We didn't win the bid on the first one; so we decided to wait for the second one. The bid on the second was gonna be over after 2 hrs so I decided to go do my laundry. I went to the laundry room and put my clothes in the washing machine then I went to have some tea with my friend while the 45 minutes time needed for the cycle passed by. Then I went to the laundry room and removed my clothes from the washing machine and put them in the tumble dryer. Then I went back to George's room and waited for the bid time to pass by and WE WON!!! We bought a 19'' monitor for £48 :) After that I used Google Earth to show him Lebanon. He thought it was very beautiful (who wouldn't :P) I even tagged my home, high school , uni, and grandpa's house. I also showed him the Cedars, the Bekaa valley, and some pictures of mountain villages. He was shocked to find out that Lebanon is green and that it snows there. He thought there was only a dessert! He was also very impressed by the fact that Beirut and Tripoli were directly on the coast of the Mediterranean sea.
After all that it was already 10 PM and I had forgotten all about my clothes in the tumble dryer hehehe. I ran back out to get my clothes, folded them, and tidied up my room. Then at 12 AM I decided to go to sleep but I went out to the kitchen and I saw Sheena and George talking. Sheena had been away in Sheffield for a Taekwondo competition during the past two days. We then chatted for a whole hour before deciding that it was time to go to sleep.
Btw, Sheena has a black belt in Taekwondo but she didn't win the competition. She has been playing Taekwondo for a few years now and she is very passionate about it. And, I think that it is cool living with someone who know how to kick ass hehehehe
AND, George thinks that Ossama bin Laden is Labanese and that he is hiding in Lebanon hehehehe I am not sure whether he was joking or not but he seemed rather convinced. I am still not sure I was able to convince him that Ossama bin Laden is Saudi and that he is 'supposedly' hiding in some cave in Afghanistan.

My Bad Luck :(

In case you haven't noticed my current facebook status, i have managed to - unintentionally of course - get my laptop's screen broken :( I am so sad at the moment ... it is inconvenient to say the least ... I have so much work to do and not having a fully-functional laptop is the most hindering obstacle one can ever face.
I was thinking about solutions to my problem and I have the following options:
1. Send it to the shop to get it fixed - this is impossible as I will have to wait at least a couple of weeks before I get it back and I can't survive without it for half a day - let alone for a few weeks. OK, so I may sound like I am dramatizing things; and I know that it is not the oxygen I breathe - but for a student - for a uni student - for an MSc student - for a computer science MSc student one's laptop is indeed as important as oxygen.
2. Get a spare one temporarily and send the laptop to the shop (or to Lebanon as my brother suggested) to get it fixed. This option is more desirable than the previous one. However, it is still inconvenient as all my programs are already installed on this laptop and all my files and data are on this laptop and a transition is just a pain in the neck
3. Go to the computer science computer lab and hook my laptop to a monitor and use it. This is actually where I am currently. This is one of the good solutions however the lab is always crowded and it has strict opening and closing times. AND, I have to leave the comfort of my room to go to the lab and stay there and can't go back to the dorms till I have finished working for the day. Or, whenever I need a break or need to grab something to eat I have to carry all my stuff back to the dorms and then back here again - sounds like torture :(
4. Buy a monitor and hook my laptop to the monitor...this is the most convenient solution - however I need at least 100 quid (i.e. 100 pounds :P ) to pay for the monitor ... any suggestions who I should ask for donations? :D
The more I think about it, the more I like the fourth option. I was thinking that I can get a monitor and use it until the term ends and then I can send the laptop to the shop to get it fixed.
Anyone else has any other solutions ;)
By the way, it is 10:30 PM - security people close the lab at 10:45 - and I have to walk back to the dorms but it is 0C outside - brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

My International Friends and Flatmates

During International Student Week (Sept 24 - Sep 28) I mainly hung out with the people I met the day before: Verena, Fleur, and Peter. We were also joined by Flora from Tanzania. Flora, however, only attended the orientation lectures with us. The rest of us would meet for dinner and play cards in the evening. They were nice and we had a lot of fun. Now, after two months, I have only stayed in touch with Fleur and I occasionally contact Verena.
Fleur wanted to live in a regular dorm room where she can share her toilet and shower with other students; but because she was under 18 years of age the hall management didn't agree and they made her stay in an en-suite room (like mine). I remember she was pissed off at their decision at the time. In retrospect, I kinda like that decision because she lives in the same building I live in - only she lives in block Q and I live in block T; which is one of the reasons we haven't lost touch.
Verena doesn't like her subject at all. She has to take a course on Ship Science and she hates it. She was facing a lot of difficulties that she has decided not to go ahead with trying to get the MSc degree; instead she will just get a postgraduate certificate.
As for my flatmates, they are really nice. The ones I am close to are Sheena and George. Sheena is from Hong Kong but she has been in England for the past eight years. George is from Zimbabwe and he has been in England for more than three years now. Sheena is a third-year psychology major. George is a first-year nursing student (even though he is 30). He used to work as a nurse in a mental hospital and he decided to get a proper uni degree. He has really long hair which he braided into many thin braids. He also has a car and he drives us to our weekly grocery shopping every weekend. George and Sheena are funny.
Fleur, George, and I have this strange agreement among us. We agreed that we will check on each others every day to see if we are all still alive. You see, about a month ago a girl committed suicide in her bathroom and no one knew about it. No one noticed that she was missing. Then a few days later her flatmates started smelling a very ugly smell and they complained about it and then the hall management discovered the dead girl's body. OK, so the story is horrible and I am sure that none of us will kill themselves; but nonetheless we made an agreement that we will check on each others everyday because we only have each others in this country.
Aso, Sheena and I have an arrangement. She hides my chocolate from me! I buy 2 big chocolate bars every week and she locks them away in her cupboard so I only eat a small piece each day instead of butchering them in two days (because of the CHOCOHOLIC I am !!!!!!)
Well, I am tired now so that is all for now about my flatmates & international friends .... other stuff coming later

P.S: after I published this post, I re-read and it has the quality of an English Composition essay written by a 5th grader attempting to compare and contrast ... ahh well I am too tired to fix it anyway

12:45 A.M. Saturday Night (Sunday)

It is 12:45 A.M. and my program is still running. This is partly my fault because I didn't work as hard as I was supposed to. You see, I have an assignment due on Monday (worth 25% of the course final grade) and I was intending on finishing it today - with the written report. I did waste some (= a lot of :$) time which is why I am still waiting for the bloody program to produce results at this time - and in case you haven't noticed some of the wasted time was spent on blogging (this is the third post tonight - hey, I have to post a lot to catch up on totally ignoring my blog for two months *bigsmile). Anyways; it is late, I am tired and sleepy, but I am too stubborn to go to sleep.

Fleur came over today and she hang out with George because I was doing my coursework. I was running my program when it produced an error :( I was so annoyed that I went into George's room to nag. We then decided to have something to eat. Fleur and George came up with the idea that we should go midnight-shopping tonight. We usually go on Saturdays or Sundays (during the day :P) but they suggested going at midnight which I was excited about. So, I decided to work for a bit; I ran my program again - it produced another error :( so I started blogging hehehe, then we all chatted for a while, and it was 11 PM and time to go. George suddenly remembered that it would be a good idea to check which ASDA opens 24hr on Saturday. With Verena, Fleur, and George in my room I went online to check out the branches. Unfortunately, NONE of the ASDA branches opens 24hr on Saturday! That was a disappointment as we were all ready to go :( anyways we agreed that we will go tomorrow at 1ish.

I always spend a lot of money on groceries (dunno why!) and I have a big list this week.

Oh yeeeeey my program just finished running; let's hope it actually produced the correct results this time :D OH NOOOOOOO I forgot to set logging on :( :@ :( :@ and now I have to run it again to see the results :( :@ :( :@ Going to sleep now sounds like the best idea ever :D

STUPID English Taps

Taps come in all shapes, sizes, and forms....English taps also come in all shapes, sizes, & forms...except that they have an extra feature which is that they are STUPID!


You see, they come in two seperate taps:a cold tap & a hot tap....VERY COLD water comes out of the cold tap and VERY HOT water comes out of the hot one!! You can imagine brushing ur teeth or washing your face or just washing your hands & imagine having to jump your hands from under the cold to under the hot to under the cold again ....and it is not just in my bathroom .... they are all over the place....i went thru the hassle of taking pictures around campus, in coffeeshops, restuarants, etc just to prove my point!
The stupidest tap I ever saw is the tap in our kitchen .. we dont have two taps...we only have one tap....however the cold water comes from the front and the hot water comes out from the back!!!! And the big secret is that: THERE ARE TWO PIPES in that tap....my friend Peter expressed it best by saying: i khate (he is Polish, he meant "hate") English taps; they are so stupid, it is even kharder ("harder") fitting two pipes in one tap that it is to just fit one!!!!

The attached pictures are: taps in my bathroom - kitchen tap (cold) - kitchen tap (hot) - and kitchen tap (THE SECRET)

Hope you enjoyed :P

Totally Ignoring My Blog !!!

Oh well ,,,, I have been in this country for TWO WHOLE months now - and I haven't blogged anything except for the detailed description of my first day! Shame on me!!!! :$
Sometimes I feel like I have been here for much longer than two months even though at other times I still feel like a stranger in a foreign country. Sometimes when I wake up and for the first two minutes I think that I am in my bed at home but then I realize that I am in my dorm room and not at home. It is probably the smell. I realised this a couple of days ago. My dorm room doesn't smell like home and my bed here doesn't smell like my bed at home. I should probably call Mom and ask her what washing powder she uses so I can use the same one :) The city also doesn't smell like Beirut (OK so it much less poluted hehehe) but I have really missed the smell of rain in Beirut (not the flooded streets though) - I don't know if it is only me; but I think that the smell of rain falling on Beirut is different than the smell of rain here (I am not weird, really. hehehe).The other time in which I feel like a complete stranger is when riding in George's car, especially if it is dark. Not recognizing the roads and not knowing where we are heading really depresses me. I think I have to wait some more time to get past this feeling.
On a more cheerful note, the city is lovely. I love the view outside my room window and I enjoy walking to uni in the morning. The weird thing is that there are no tall buildings here. I feel like I live in some village because all the buildings are small (except for malls and uni buildings DUH) and all the houses are so small!!!!!
Going back to the topic of me TOTALLY ignoring my blog after bugging everyone at home to check it as often as they can - ehem .... well, I have been busy - OK OK not too busy to blog if I was perfectly capable to facebook as well .... but hey I did email you a lot of pictures .... :$
OK, moving on, I will try to blog as much as I can and if possible also write about some of the events that took place in the last few months and write a bit about my friends and flatmates .... is that better? :D